Happy Ending
by PlonkerOnDaLoose
Summary: Because he owed her a happy ending. Kyro one-shot


**ATTENTION ALL KYRO LOVERS! WE ARE A DYING BREED! PLEASE VISIT THE "SAVE THE KYRO" FORUM **(like Save The Whales, only for Kyros. Yeah? Yeah? You feelin' it?) **TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE**

Not another angsty Kyro! Not another plonker on the loose! Won't they just go away?

The answer is NO

**Disclaimer: **nope, don't own anything.

_beta'__d by my buddy **aiRo25writes**_

Dedicated to Ian McEwan for the gift he gave the world with _Atonement_. I know I seem a little presumptuous dedicating a crappy little one shot to one of the world's best living authors, but I don't care. And if you have yet to read _Atonement_, do it NOW, I say. Now.

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* * *

  
Happy Ending**

_  
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story_  
Orson Welles

_  
This is the way you left me  
I'm not pretending  
No hope, no love, no glory  
No happy ending_  
'Happy Ending' – Mika

Kitty can never bring herself to finish it; she never gets more than halfway, not even after the loving husband read it (joking to her not to expect him to write a book about her), not even after the son read it ("She eats the peanut butter just like you, Mom", "You have the same middle names, Mom", "Mom, did this guy stalk you or something before he wrote, 'cause you're crazily like her"), not even after they made it into a movie (which she left, making her excuses, phasing down along the row in the theatre, her popcorn going cold in her empty seat). She just couldn't. It seemed so unfair that they, two fictional characters, Raphael and Ellen, had a happy ending when they, two real people, just ended.

They're discussing it in the English Lit. class she's covering for Warren. The first novel by the first mutant ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, the Man Booker prize, Commonwealth Writers' Prize (but prizes mean nothing when the only way you can be with the girl you love is through cold words on paper and a character that shares her middle name, her dark hair, her habit of eating peanut butter straight from the jar, the freckles on the small of her back, the hollow at the base of her throat, the look in her eyes when you slip the ring on her finger, the ring you never bought, because this is where reality becomes fiction, and in real life there are no happy endings).

It captures your heart and then chews it up into a million tiny pieces and spits them out and jumps on them in Dad's old Doc Martins, back from when Johnny Rotten was king – and then picks them up, so tenderly in fingers clumsy with devotion, and stitches them back together. You can still see the tear, the scar, but that's the point. The past was there, it was real, it happened, but we're stronger than that. We're still here. Look at us, we're still here.

Somehow, the happy ending worked without ruining everything, without the Hollywood sign coming into view in the background, without the bluebirds singing and the sun shining and old ladies crying into their lace hankies, it worked without make-up make-outs in the rain, it worked without heavy speeches; it just worked because everyone could see it was meant to. There was no other possible way it could end.

"It's, like, really good," Sarah is saying, confident and strong, "the way they dealt with Raphael's brother."

Ah, John, the destructive brother, the prodigal brother, the little brother.

"They couldn't forgive him for, like, what he did, but they never forgot him."

He was always there, until the bitter end, just as much a part of Raphael as an arm, a leg, a heart; he's not just a piece of junk (an old Zippo, just say) one could fling into the Hudson in a rage, gone forever, end of story. He's a brother. Ellen, she's a friend, a lover, a wife, a soulmate, but Johnny's a brother, he's blood, and you can't trump blood.

Sarah finishes up, holding her battered copy, "They were able to still be, even with him there. That's why they're, like, so special. And that's why we're reading about them and not Brad and Jen. They were like, totally cute together, but they didn't have that– " she clicks her fingers, searching, fishing for the word " –that special thing that Rapha and Ellen had. I mean, after John did all that bad shit and Rapha went with him, just leaving Ellen without even saying goodbye and everything – But then he came back and she was able to see past John, see him, the man she loved, and she forgave him. And the ending, it was, like, totally awesome."

"Awesome," Kitty says decisively, "would not be the word I'd choose."

Sarah, always eager to improve, presses her for the word.

"I've never read the end," she confesses.

The class gasps collectively as if she's taken the Lord's name in vain in St. Peter's Basilica, right in front of His Holiness, the Pope himself.

"You haven't read …" Sarah's choked up, she can't finish. Kitty finds a moment to appreciate the irony. She shakes her head. "But why? Why?"

Why did you kill the bunny rabbits? Why?

"I already know how it ends."

"Er, so do we, Professor," Sarah points out. "It's, like, a true story."

Kitty smiles at her, the smile to cover all things. Don't worry, honey, it's okay that you don't understand why you can't eat dishwasher tablets. Someday, you will. And she says, "I know how it really ends."

.

**xXxXxXxXxXx**

.

The presenter holds up the book, his first book. It's been so long now. Fifty years, almost. He's written so much since then, but this one – this one is special. He remembers every word.

" … out of all your books, you say this one is your favourite?"

John nods.

"Why?" he asks, the latest in series of orange-faced Yanks John's put up with over his career. They say he can't smoke in the studio, but their smugness is a smog, choking him anyway. "Why this one? Because it's the first? You won a few awards with this story, didn't you?"

John's business is lying, twisting those ugly lies into something pretty, but his fingers hurt today. He's old and the cold makes his fingers hurt. "Because it's true."

The presenter wasn't expecting this and he tries for surprise, but the botox makes it rather difficult. "True? You serious? This is all true?"

"Basically, yes," John admits. "Only John and Raphael are the same person and Ellen doesn't like N*Sync."

A laugh from the presenter. "Girl's got taste, then – No offence, boys."

"And the end," John says, almost to himself. The world, they were eavesdropping, but she was out there, out there in that world. "They deserved that end. John and Kitty."

"I'm sorry …" He's confused, Mr. TV Orange Botox. He gives the book a little shake, as if to say, I'm right. I have proof. "I thought it was Ellen and Raphael. John was the bad guy."

John looks at him with pity. "When you get to be my age, you'll understand that there are no good guys and bad guys. There are only the guys who did and the guys who didn't. And in real life, he didn't."

The presenter's really getting into it now. His botox is hindering things slightly, but he's trying all the same. He leans forward, intense, "And the ending? What happened to them? The real lovers?"

Real. The word is like a poison, killing off the flowers, cultivating the weeds. Real lovers. Real life.

"In real life," John says, and he can't help but to smirk. Old habits die hard. "In real life, he never came back."

Whether she forgave him or not, that was a guess. It was the hardest part, second guessing her, but it was a necessary evil. Because they deserved it, their ending, them together, immortalised in prose, suspended in time like a bug in amber, forever.

"So why didn't you write that?"

The answer is simple. "Because I owed it to her. I owed her a happy ending."

_  
You were everything, everything that I wanted  
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it  
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away  
All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending.  
_'My Happy Ending' – Avril Lavigne_  
_

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Yes, I was reading _Atonement_ (again) and listening to ridiculous amounts of Mika. How observant of you to ask. LOL. Just another angsty little Kyro. Hope you enjoyed it. If you spot any mistakes, typos, etc., have any suggestions, do let me know. I'm all ears. Reviews are LOVE. Kyro LOVE

Remember, we want YOU at the **_Save The Kyro _**forum for your daily dose of Kyro goodness

Cheers, Plonksie


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